UCLA cancels classes after violence erupts on campus over the war in Gaza NBC 7 San Diego [Video]

Dueling groups of protesters clashed overnight at the University of California, Los Angeles, grappling in fistfights and shoving, kicking and using sticks to beat one another. Hours earlier, police carrying riot shields burst into a building at Columbia University that pro-Palestinian protesters took over and broke up a demonstration that had paralyzed the school while inspiring others.

After a couple hours of one-and-off scuffles between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators at UCLA, police wearing helmets and face shields arrived, formed lines and began to slowly corral some of the protesters. That appeared to quell the violence.

UCLA canceled classes Wednesday and urged people to avoid the area where the fighting broke out. The school’s library won’t reopen until Monday and Royce Hall, which authorities said was vandalized, is closed through Friday. UCLA stationed law enforcement officers throughout campus.

Tent encampments of protesters calling on universities to stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the war in Gazahave spread across campuses nationwide in a student movement unlike any other this …